Heidelberg is unveiling its latest presses, the Linoprint CV and the Linoprint CP for improved flexibility and productivity in the cost-effective production of short, personalized, and hybrid print runs.

Printers have been exhorted to become marketing services providers for a long time. But so few have done it that MSPs have become a kind of urban myth. Trico Evolution, seems to be one company that has managed the transition.

The world of industrial print is full of exotic substrates like glass, ceramic and textiles, so much so that “industrial print” is fragmented and hard to clearly define. Yet industrial printing isn’t just raising eyebrows—it’s drawing crowds. Take for example InPrint 2014, the inaugural trade show and conference focused solely on the wonders and wares of industrial print. Held in Hanover on April 8 to 10, the fledgling event drew nearly 7,000 visitors from 60 countries, more than double the expectations of its organizers.

UV is one of those bright spots in the printing industry. Having started as a niche technology, it has gained momentum and is growing rapidly. For example, UV is the fastest growing segment of wide-format printing, with which it is most commonly associated, and many of the new B2 inkjet printing presses use UV inks. It’s also important in packaging, is common in screen printing and flexo, particularly in Europe, and its use is growing in offset.

Indeed, UV printing is directly connected with and largely responsible for the growing interest in value added commercial offset printed products. Curtis Carby, product manager for pressroom products at Fujifilm, believes “UV is a technology that is going to sustain the offset world; it is the only way to compete with digital.”

It’s no secret that commercial printers are increasingly looking to packaging as a possible stable ground, a new arena in which to find their footing following the tumultuous recession years and the so-called death of print. The rationale is simple: while printed media may eventually go the way of the dinosaur (or at least the way of the giant panda), packages are here to stay. Even if consumers can order their Coco Puffs online, those delicious puffed grains still have to be shipped in a box. The Internet, at least not yet, has no way of duplicating the function of folding carton.

In GM's October 2013 issue we took a look at a specialty market that got away, and explored how you can bring it back to your shop. One market segment that’s been impacted less than others by the decade-long decline in business levels is forms printing. Each month, millions of print forms are used in Canada, whether simple one-part forms or multi-section/multi-copy forms.

That said, over the same decade we’ve seen a big move away from paper forms to electronic, designed to be completed and returned online. The shift started in the late ’90s when federal and provincial governments and big businesses (the largest users of forms) began adopting interactive PDFs or web-based forms. Many of the existing forms-printing companies moved to keep up, adding electronic form products and services, but much of the work disappeared into government and enterprise IT or fulfillment departments. >> continued

In printing, as with any business, when the same products and services are offered by a lot of vendors the competition drives prices down over time. These offerings become commodities, sold on the lowest price and usually for the lowest profit. In a tight financial environment, it pays to offer products and services your competitors don’t. This time, let’s look at two types of specialty printing – one long-standing and one brand-new.

SECURITY PRINTING
Security printing, designed to verify authenticity and offer protection from tampering or forgery, dates back to the earliest days of printing when papermakers introduced subtle watermarks to identify their products. Today, there are dozens of security methods used in printing. For example,Canadian paper currency is printed on a combination of restricted cotton-fibre paper stock and clear polymer plastic and uses over a dozen printed security measures. >> continued

Diana Lucaci, founder of True Impact Marketing, discusses how neuroscience can create more intelligent marketing. She calls this neuromarketing. The good news is that print has a lot of neuromarketing advantages.

Since the introduction of high-volume colour digital printing technology 20 years ago, most of the industry's attention has gone to broad commercial print applications, such as direct mail, catalogues, and brochures. Nevertheless, dedicated digital colour label presses have almost as long a history, and their use has accelerated over the past decade. Not only do colour digital label and packaging presses now make up an important segment of the overall digital printer category, digital label presses are widely accepted among both label converters and their customers. Indeed, digital technology is one of the most exciting areas in label printing and converting today.>> continued

Ricoh launched the Pro C700X series, a cutsheet device family that offers a fifth colour station. The new station supports either white or clear ink. The C7100X prints at speeds of up to 80 ppm and the C7110x at speeds of up to 90 pp, both based upon A4.

They have a maximum sheet size of 13 x 19.2" and maximum monthly volume of 240,000 based on letter size. It prints at 1200x4800 dpi with VCSEL image quality on various substrates, from tree-based paper to synthetics and envelopes. The C7100X series can support paper weights of up to 360gsm in simplex and duplex.

The Ricoh Pro C700X series has a targeted availability of December 2014. >> continued